The Beauty of Bikes -- Even Ugly Ones
By John Kelly - Washington Post...
Not so good is the news that the intercounty connector might not have a continuous bike path along its 19-mile route in Montgomery County. Bad for the environment, planners say. As opposed to, say, the six-lane highway itself and the thousands of vehicles that will travel on it?
Let's see: There's too much traffic. There's too much pollution. There's too much fat. It seems to me that every new road that's built around here -- and plenty of old ones -- should include dedicated bike lanes.
Of course, riding a bike in our area can get you killed. Car plus bike often equals disaster. If you'll excuse an Oxonian memory, I never felt nervous cycling in Oxford, even when I was pedaling on a narrow, rain-slicked road with a double-decker bus looming inches from my right elbow.
The reason I didn't feel nervous is because I knew the bus driver had been in my shoes before, maybe when he was a kid, maybe on his commute to work that very morning. When you've ridden a bike regularly, you look out for bikes.
That's not the case here. We've severed our relationship with these sublime machines. Making it easier to cycle -- by building bike lanes and bike paths -- will help us reestablish it. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303818.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303818.html</a>;
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